Dr. Franklin Monroe Gilbert TX8812
FRANKLIN MONROE GILBERT
(1887 - 1982)

Franklin M. Gilbert was a teacher and principal before attending medical school at the University of Texas in Galveston. He interned in New York, where he met nurse Dorothy Bald Brandon (1901-1990), who became his wife. The couple returned to Irving, and he practiced medicine with his father, prominent physician Daniel Webster Gilbert. During Dr. Franklin Gilbert's distinguished 59-year career, he also served on the school board, as Mayor and as president of Irving State Bank. The family's medical legacy continued with his two physician sons.

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Sowers Community TX12054

By 1856, Edmund D. and Freelove Sowers, who came to Texas from Illinois, owned land in this vicinity. Along with their neighbors, including Jacob and Henry Caster, and William and Lucinda Haley, they farmed, hunted game and cut timber. Ed Sowers also served as a blacksmith.

Sowers opened a general store on his property in the late 1870s, and a small business district developed around it. As additional families came to the area, Sowers donated land that was added to an adjacent burial plot to form the community cemetery. In 1881, he applied for a mail route and opened a Post Office in his general store. During that same time, Sowers built a schoolhouse for local children. In the 1880s, several physicians came to the Sowers community, including William Wilson, Alfred Gregory and Daniel Webster Gilbert, who had a local drugstore. Dr. John Haley, a Sowers native who would later serve as Mayor of Irving, began his medical practice here in 1897.

With medical services and the Post Office, the Sowers community served as a center for area farming communities. Ed and Freelove Sowers held annual Fourth of July picnics and other festivals, inviting families from the region to camp, dance, compete in baseball games and enjoy barbecue dinners.

Despite the growth of nearby Irving, the Sowers community, with strong foundations in the dairy and poultry businesses, survived until the 1950s. The Sowers School consolidated with Irving schools in 1955, and Irving annexed the community itself in 1954 and 1956. Today, the businesses and homes are gone. Only the cemetery remains as a link to the Sowers community.

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Webster County GA152-2
This County, created by Act of the Legislature December 16, 1853, was originally named Kinchafoonee. It was organized in 1834 at which time Preston was chartered. An Act of February 21, 1856, changed the name to Webster in honor of Daniel Webster, New England orator and statesman. Among the first Kinchafoonee County Officers in 1854 were: Sheriff Carey T. Cox, Clerk of Superior Court James G. Hall, Clerk of Inferior Court John D. King, Ordinary E.B. Swiney, Tax Receiver William McLendon, Tax Collector Lucius Sanders, Sur-veyor Jno. McCain and Coroner James R. Moore. The first Webster County Officers included: Sheriff John P. Beaty, Clerk of Superior Court James G.M. Ball, Clerk of Inferior Court Wm. R. Redding, Ordinary David G. Rogers, Tax Receiver Eben E. Little, Tax Collector Alexander Winzor, Surveyor John McCain, Coroner John D. Jones and Commissioners George M. Hay, John W. Easters, William H. Hallen, Henry W. Spears and James G.M. Ball.

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Daniel Webster IL292
DANIEL WEBSTER

Standing under an Elm tree at the intersection of these streets he made a public address in 1837.

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Village of Cooksville/Village of Waucoma WI342

Cooksville consists of two villages: Cooksville platted in 1842 and Waucoma platted in 1846. John and Daniel Cook settled here in 1840, establishing Cooksville on the Badfish Creek, where a sawmill was soon constructed. Dr. John Porter of Massachusetts laid out Waucoma east of Cooksville. The two villages were settled by people from New England, New York, the British Isles, and, later, Norway. But the village, known as Cooksville because of the post office's location, was bypassed by railroads in the 1860s, becoming "the town that time forgot."

The Village of Waucoma was established in 1846 by Dr. John Porter, who purchased land next to Cooksville from his Massachusetts friend, Senator Daniel Webster. Waucoma was laid out around a public square. Soon Greek Revival and Gothic Revival style houses, some of locally fired brick, were built by Yankee settlers, along with blacksmith shops, general stores, a hotel, a door and sash factory, a schoolhouse, and two churches. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, Cooksville is known as "a wee bit of New England in Wisconsin."

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Birthplace of Daniel Webster NH67
Birthplace of Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster was born here January 18, 1782. Statesman and lawyer, he served as U.S. Congressman from New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Senator from Massachusetts and Secretary of State under Presidents Harrison, Tyler, and Fillmore. A noted orator, he achieved national recognition in the landmark Dartmouth College case. He died in Marshfield, Massachusetts October 24, 1852 and is buried there. He was one of the first men elected to the U.S. Senate Hall of Fame in 1957.

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Brazos Santiago, C. S. A. TX496

Brazos Santiago Pass, to south of this spot, was important Confederate harbor-entry during the Civil War. On island across the pass were fort and town of Brazos Santiago, where on Feb. 21, 1861, Texas troops under Col. John S. Ford captured the U.S. depot with mortars, siege guns and ordnance. A Confederate battery was then set up. In March 1861, off the bar, on U.S.S. "Daniel Webster", E.B. Nichols and Maj. Fitzjohn Porter, acting for Texas and the U.S., arranged Federal evacuation of the Rio Grande. Blockade ships arrived Dec. 1861.

Col. Ford shifted forces to Brownsville. Gen. J.B. Magruder, C.S.A., ordered blasting of lighthouse north of pass, 1862. Trade vital to Confederacy plied from Cuba, Europe, Asia to Bagdad, Mexico, often actually slipping into Brazos Santiago Pass. Harbor sheltered blockade runners 1861-64. On May 10, 1863, U.S.S. "Brooklyn" destroyed schooners in the harbor. Late 1863, French warships banned war material in Bagdad, and Mexican steam lighters ran guns from sea vessels into Brazos Santiago. Nov. 2, 1863, Gen. N.P. Banks landed U.S. Army here, took line of Rio Grande forts. Refortified Brazos Island and made it terminus for Army railroad to Rancho Blanco on Rio Grande. When C.S.A. retook Rio Grande Line in 1864, Federals in Brownsville were thrown back to Brazos Island. Col. Theodore H. Barrett, with troops from here, marching on Brownsville in May 1865, was confronted by Col. Ford's Confederates at Palmito Hill and fought last engagement of the Civil War.

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Daniel Webster Gilbert, M.D. TX6724
DANIEL WEBSTER GILBERT, M.D.
(1854 - 1930)

Mississippi native D.W. Gilbert came to Texas in 1874. Graduated from Missouri Medical College in 1881, he began his practice in Euless and Grapevine. In 1884 he moved to Sowers, purchased 1500 acres of farmland, planted a peach orchard and operated a dairy. He relocated to Irving in 1903, becoming one of the area's first physicians and a civic leader. Respected and beloved by those he served, Gilbert was buried here among his family.

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Ireland Cemetery TX2568
Ireland Cemetery

This site was once the family burial plot for the Daniel Webster (D.W.) Edwards family. The first marked grave is for his one-year-old son, Sterling P. Edwards, dating to October 1873. Several stones indicate other unmarked graves.

Edwards settled in Texas after his Civil War Regiment, the 11th Missouri Infantry, disbanded while in Texas in 1865. The next year, he married the widowed Elizabeth Moore Roberts. In 1871, he purchased land in this area, and his parents, Micajah and Matilda (Poor), later moved here from Missouri. Other family members who came include Allison Micajah Edwards, William P. and his wife, Eliza Jane (Faubion) Edwards, and several Faubion family members.

In this community, D.W. and Elizabeth reared her two children and children of their own, including Daniel Lee Edwards, who, in 1920, donated the graveyard to the Ireland Cemetery Association. Early families interred here represent the cultures, occupations and customs of the community. Family names include Austin, Coston, Davis, Dooley, Faubion, Hampton, Huckabee, Hull, Kight, Laing, Lovelace, Neyland, Oldham, Pearson, Pietzsch, Taylor, Tyler, Walker, Williams, Walsleben and Wilson.

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Littlefield Building TX4007
Littlefield Building

George Washington Littlefield (1842-1920) came to Texas from Mississippi in 1850. After serving in Terry's Texas Rangers in the Civil War, he made his fortune ranching and driving cattle. He moved to Austin in 1883 and, in 1890, established the American National Bank, which included a ladies' banking department. He hired architect C.H. Page, Jr., to design this Beaux Arts Classical building, which opened in 1912 with a rooftop garden. His bank was on the ground floor. For the corner entrance, he commissioned Tiffany's of New York to cast bronze, Bas Relief doors by sculptor Daniel Webster. These were later donated to the University of Texas, of which Littlefield was a major benefactor.

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